Embracing Heaven and Earth: Navigating the Tension between Realism and Idealism in a World on Fire

so it's always the the inquiry that I'm always busy with and I like to share has to do with the nature of Enlightenment and the nature of enlight and awareness what is it all about very difficult to understand a lot of people have different ideas about it very confusing so I want to I keep trying to make at least my understanding clear and I hope that it will be helpful to all of you so I've been thinking a lot in my own daily experience about the difference between realism and idealism and the reason for that is because the world that we're living in together at the moment is literally on fire in many different ways and it's a it's a very frightening and confusing insecure time to be alive and I'm sure most of us are very aware of this and it's struggling with it existentially practically spiritually metaphysically philosophically what's the right relationship to this enormous challenge we're all facing as a global species and many of the challenges we're facing feel overwhelming daunting brightening sometimes it's hard in relationship to these challenges that we're all facing sometimes it's hard to see the bright side of the picture the the it's hard hard to feel optimistic and yet the nature of the Awakening to enlightened awareness the you know what's called the ultimate truth or the absolute truth or the highest truth is understood to be a a reference point for a knowing that transcends Duality but but simultaneously recognized and understood to be unequivocally and absolutely positive beyond measure and so in my own experience in my own thinking in my own way trying to face the challenge of trying to be honest and come to terms to with the best I can with the challenges we're facing at a global level trying to find out what the relationship to all of this is and trying to align that with my understanding of Enlightenment my experience of Enlightenment my intimate knowing at the highest and deepest level there is a perfection in everything and I don't want to be casual in the way that I think about these things I don't want to throw away these distinctions in a in a way that's that's just too easy because these are Big these are Big challenging questions we don't want to be casual about what we think about these things we want to really struggle with to try and come to a measure of deeper understanding and I'm and I'm in that middle of that process myself and that's what made me want to talk about these two different perspectives in relationship to Spiritual Awakening The Awakening to Enlighten awareness now when someone is awake or when we consider someone to be spiritually awake or even enlightened at least awake or even enlightened whatever that may mean we expect them to be we expect them because supposed to be awake and enlightened we expect them to to have a have cultivated a capacity or greater capacity to see reality and to see the world around them more clearly than most people and for example especially in Buddhism uh there's a lot of talk about being able to see things as they are and when we are roduced to the Art and Science of meditation when we learn when we try to transcend the conditioning of our mind and we do begin to wake up to how conditioned we really are we start to see that a great deal of the time we're not seeing things very clearly we're seeing our what we're seeing much of the time is largely a a projection of our own mind and occasionally the mind when the mind seems to come into some kind of radical Focus us we start to see everything more clearly with greater intensity with greater vibrancy in those moments we get a glimpse of what it could be like to be awake to be enlightened to be able to see things more clearly and once we get a taste of that of course then we want to start doing the spiritual work and the spiritual practice we need to do in order to be able to cultivate that capacity at a greater level so we can have that experience more often so um there's an American Buddhist teacher named lamaas who has a great line which I really like after teaching for many years he said everybody's crazy and I've been teaching for many years and I also I agree with him most most of us are pretty crazy I'm not excluding myself from that category but I'm just saying that the more one wakes up and the more one learns about the reality and the complexity and the challenge of being human and the reality of The Human Condition we start discovering how crazy we all are but that being said some of us are more crazy than others and in this context I would relate the craziness the degree of craziness with our capacity to see reality C more clearly or not some people are so crazy that they live in a world that is complete completely delusional and made up with the projections of their own unconscious and semiconscious minds and other people are so awake that they are aware of a significant degree of their own conditioning are able to see things much much much much much more clearly so there's a relationship between being able to see more clearly which is takes a lot of work and a lot of a lot of spiritual work because to see reality more clearly we have to get our small self our ego mind egoic frontal self or fral personality the ego self out of the way because our own our own story own personal narrative the ego story tends to T to take up too much space in our experience of conscious awareness we tend to be distracted by our own story and our thinking our thoughts about our own story and our feelings about our own story and this tends to make it tends to obscure capacity to see reality directly free from being overwhelmed by the the story of my small self that's principally what makes it so hard for us to see things as they are of course there is as I've been saying it's a matter of conditioning and the mind in the self Rec condition in so many ways and so many levels it's impossible to come to terms with all of it but often we're just seeing the projections of our own conditioned Minds it's largely unconscious and so how much of the time are we actually seeing what what's what what is simply what what is a reality as it is the measure of objectivity free from being blinded by unconscious conditioning and ego projections it's a it's a it's a heroic task it's a huge spiritual task it's a tremendous spiritual challenge to be able to see clearly it's not a joke and very few of us I think actually do but the more one sees clearly the more powerfully spiritually awake one becomes and it takes enormous courage and commitment to integrity and honesty authenticity truthfulness to be able to see clearly it's a beautiful thing in life when you meet an honest person when you meet somebody who you find over time over getting to know someone over a period of time long period of time you get to know that this person is truly truly honest and there's a deep authenticity to the nature of their way their soul expresses itself said people like to so rare and it usually takes an enormous amount of spiritual practice and a lot of suffering to get to that point ourselves when we're able to be authentic and transparent simple and truthful real so so another aspect of trying to see things as they are realism has to do with has to do with wanting to know the truth I want to know the truth do you really want to know the truth most people don't want to know the truth they want to know who want to have a picture of reality that fits in with their own conscious and unconscious fears and desires it's another thing altogether to want to know what the truth of the way things are actually is on a own terms free from personal fears free from personal preferences free from our own unconscious needs and projections and I would call that a spiritually mature it's a spiritually very mature person who for first and foremost wants to see reality it as it is no matter what the truth is they want to see reality on its own terms no matter what the truth may be because they know unless they're seeing the truth on its own terms and not seeing reality clearly and if we don't see reality clearly we can't have an honest and authentic relationship to reality and a spiritually mature person wants that they want to have a mature honest truthful relationship with reality as as much as possible that expresses kind of a soul level Integrity of our Embrace of the human the challenge of being human and for some of us being honest and truthful being in in this kind of Integrity with life with the challenge of being authentic honest and truthful and real means means means everything to us so there's a lot of things about life that's very frightening a lot of aspects of experience are very frightening as I said at the beginning of my talk we're living in times that are very frightening living in a time in history that's very frightening and it's frightening to even begin to think about the challenges that we're facing and it takes a lot of courage to think about why it's so frightening and also you think about why we why we've ended up in this situation it's it's also frightening to see how far stray we could have we could have gone and why we why we've ended up in such a disastrous overwhelmingly challenging situation as a global species the truth is frightening and the questions about why this happened why it's happening with frightening so so to be able to see reality clearly takes a lot of Courage it takes a lot of commitment and yeah one more thing on the subject uh the ego as you all already know is not invested in seeing reality clearly it's invested in being right and this is a big problem if you want to live a live an authentically awakened life so once again more people than not are are more interested in being right about whatever it happens to be than they aren't seeing seeing seeing reality as it is that's a problem you can see this clearly in the craziness of the politics we're facing now in the world and the Dynamics that work the the collective Dynamics in terms of the nature of Mind how it works collectively it's just brightening but if we want to be able to see reality as it is to see reality clearly we have to be very cultivate the kind of spiritual maturity that will enable us to be more interested in what's actually true than in our being right about whatever it is and that takes a lot of Courage because if we if we feel that we're right it makes us feel secure safe and if we feel we're not see we're not seeing things clearly sorry if we feel if we discover that we're wrong God forbid we discover that we're wrong the an immature ego can be very frightened by possibility of being wrong about something important you can shake up Shake Up us our confidence quite a bit but a spiritual Warrior someone who's very serious about becoming spiritually mature and awake is more afraid of delusion than they are being wrong I want to I want to know the truth I want to see things clearly even if it's very painful and frightening I want to I want to have a right and authentic and true relationship with reality or as much as possible and this is a daily challenge so we could say we could say that an awakened person if we believe they're really awakened we would expect that that a one demonstration of that Awakening would be an unusual degree to face difficult issues personal issues for that individual and larger Collective issues that we're facing as a global species but what it's a certain it's this capacity to to see things more clearly to look more courageously to always be more interested in what the truth is than we are being right about whatever it is how and finally how much can we stand stand stand in the unknown and not and not know not be sure how much can we bear the insecurity of not knowing if we're right or wrong how much can we bear the other kind of insecurity so that's one side of the picture [Music] um which is which in this context I'm calling realism for lack of a better term but there's another aspect to all this which is very paradoxical which is has to do with the nature of the with Awakening there comes a recognition of what I call the ultimate nature of reality there's a deep and profound Awakening there there is Awakening to non-duality or to the ultimate nature of reality I like to describe it as the ultimate nature of everything that exists and everything does not exists is something the ultimate nature of everything that exists in the ultimate nature everything that does not exist is something it's whatever the something is is Ultimate it is Ultimate it is absolute it's non-relative whatever the word god means in a traditional context the metaphysical implications of that word are exactly what I'm pointing to the ultimate nature of all things as as as as a something or as an isness so the greatest realizers throughout history who have all described their own confrontation with this absolute principle always describe it as a kind of positivity that is Indescribable therefore when you come upon a spiritually a powerfully spiritually enlightened human being we expect them to be vibrating with positivity you don't expect them to be depressed miserable frustrated anxious confused lost or fearful if they have found the ultimate truth we expect them to be vibrating with the kind of positivity the kind of positive vibrations that uh someone who's found that truth is supposed to be expressing because that deep joy and that deep happiness is supposed to be a sign that they have arrived on the Yonder Shore that the Buddha spoke about they've made it and they're established on that yonder Shore and such people do exist and if you ever meet have a good fortune to meet someone like that you'll find that they seem to have access to a s source of unreasonable joy and happiness it seems to have nothing personal about that seems to have no personal component to it like a deep reservoir of of ecstasy and positivity my own Guru the great hwl pun had a had a remarkable had access had access to a more remarkable reservoir of overwhelming positivity and joy I mean it was literally striking and shocking how overwhelmed with joy he could become at times and Bliss and happiness so what does that look like what does it look like to find something so beautiful as a permanent gift from the absolute what does it what does it look like you in human life what does it mean when you found something that's so beautiful that's more beautiful than anything relative or anything material could ever be it always lights up your soul and lights up your mind and lights up your heart no matter what's happening in the external surroundings that you may be in with no matter what's happening within the relative circumstances of your personal life just it's discovering an ultimate truth that is so joyous but when you awaken to it that Joy seems to become over overwhelm all relative experiences thoughts and feelings because you're discovering some a Truth by the nature of reality that's just deeper than anything any kind of relative experience of thought and feeling could ever be so when this happens you it means one is resting in kind of an inner conviction an inner experience and inner vibration of H happiness and joy that's causeless that exists for no reason it's caused us it exists for no reason just is the ultimate nature of reality it seems and when that Consciousness and consciousness of the ultimate nature of all things comes to the surface of awareness one becomes overwhelmed by a causeless joy that overwhelms all relative perception all relative cognition all relative emotion gets completely overwhelmed and sideline by the presence of this overwhelming Joy now the way that I think about this we don't want to this is I'm just expressing an opinion most of this is my opinion but not all of it um we don't want to use this kind of attainment this kind of glimpse of of the absolute and it's unconditionally and absolutely ecstatic nature to Shield us from coming to terms with reality the hard truths about reality in the way that I approach this I I want us to use our knowledge of the the unconceivable goodness it lies at the source of reality to become to give us access to the kind of Courage we need to face difficult things in life in Human Experience if you know it at the at the ultimate level there is pure positivity without reason it simply is what it is and it can't be understood with the mind but it but it knowledge of it utterly releases one from fear and doubt and liberates the mind and the Soul absolutely if you know that to be if you know that to be the case if you know that to be true and it makes sense that that would be able to give you enormous courage be a source of courage in order to fight to to face into difficult truths and to fight the good fight I have the courage to be here in this difficult world world space because I know the at the highest level whatever seems to be happening here it's ultimately okay does it mean it's good I didn't say it was good I said we know we know that ultimately it's okay and that removes a lot of the fear and a lot of The Recoil of course we have we all have to have um compassion for our fragile human Souls where there is a lot of fear and insecurity and doubt no matter how enlightened we we may be we want to make room for our for a little bit of insecurity in the midst of all this but I'm just making a general Point here that um at least in the way that I think about it the way I try and help people to understand this the high spiritual attainment the high spiritual insights and high spiritual experiences are not ants in themselves they're not the destination not the ultimate destination but they are the means to an end and the means in this case the means to give us the kind of what I call spiritual self-confidence to in order to live in this world with tremendous courage and fearless spiritual self-confidence and creativity and even in our best moments expressions of of kind of bodh bodh satvic inspired hero heroism because as long as we're here then I believe it's my I believe I can't prove it but I'm pretty convinced we've been here before and we're going to be here coming back again that we want that we want to realize that we want to if we can if we wake up we want our life here to mean something to be an expression of something unthinkably positive and Noble we want we want this life to mean something you should want your life to mean something not to just be a a process of good days and bad days and kind of Meandering around through time and space and psychological and emotional confusion you want this precious experience of embodied Consciousness to mean something and then it's all worth it in the end then in the end then it'll all be worth it and it'll be worth it because we made it worth it we made the spiritual effort that was necessary for all this the challenge of being a conscious human being be worthwhile so in building on this idea on this on this notion of idealism spiritual idealism the way that I'm thinking about it on one hand the source of this idealism is is the recognition about the ultimate nature of all things but uh another expression of of this awakened idealism is is has to do with the way that we think so on good days and on bad days how do you think about the future because the way we think about the future the way you think about the future the way I think about the future the way we think about the future is what ultimately creates that future so so part so profound expression of this this awakened idealism that comes directly from spiritual from cognition of the highest level of reality has to do with a spontaneous relationships in the future that's inherently positive which means a vision of the future that is positive it's not something that you're building with your mind you know making effort to build with your mind but it's something that is just there in other words you may be having a difficult time in the present reality of your daily experience you might find day to- day moment to moment conscious experience at this particular moment in your life for whatever for whatever reason emotionally psychologically and spiritually challenging and difficult and painful and frightening and confusing for good reason could be but if this happens in a context when your relationship to the Future which is yet to be born born is indestructibly positive unless you're living with a vision you're always mean means you're always living with an awakened inspired vision of the possible as your our destination in the future I'm personally convinced that all evolutionary bod bodic satas which is another discussion are awake to such a vision the vision of the possible and it doesn't come from the Mind alone comes from the awakens from Soul and heart comes from Consciousness itself directly it's a vision of the possible that exists in the future and it's a vision of the possible that is glorious magnificent ecstatic beautiful beyond imagination it's when all all our dreams and everybody's dreams come true Beyond any possible measurement so somehow embedded in Consciousness already I believe in this is true in my experience and this is true I notice in other people's experience who awaken to The evolutionary impulse awaken to this bodic sodic aspiration suddenly have a different kind of relationship to the Future because when you're waking into this impulse The evolutionary impulse if the future always represents the the fruition the ways Beyond imagination of the promise of The evolutionary impulse so another expression of this idealism is embracing the Paradox that I'm speaking about which is you the reality of your life experience for whatever reason for many different reasons may be very difficult challenging frightening confusing and even painful or terrible in the present moment but if you're awake to evolutionary evolutionary Enlightenment to The evolutionary impulse you can sign multaneously be spontaneously awake and aware of a pulsation and vibration that is calling your attention towards the future and this impulse will bear fruit will will come to fruition it means no matter how bad things get for you in the present moment in the reality of your Human Experience you are always metaphysically awake and aware to what's possible in the future in a way that is unimaginably beautiful not as a this is not as some kind of Escape tactic some form of self-d delute I'm not talking about escapism or some kind of where we can delude ourselves I'm speaking about a the spontaneous emergence of a certain kind of knowing that comes from Awakening to The evolutionary impulse The evolutionary currents of the cosmos which is inherently future oriented and which is which is calling us to and Promises a positivity that is beyond measure Beyond conception and so this is something I've been thinking about quite a bit and it's very interesting because there's a big Paradox in everything I'm saying here is I'm sure you can get by now and and it's possible to hold this Paradox in a way that's very powerful and it it takes a lot of spiritual strength to be able to hold these two truths but one truth is that we're on the Titanic and we hit the we've already hit the iceberg and we're aware the implications are quite dire for us and a lot of other people but this can happen in a context where at the same time you're aware of another another dimension of reality that that is equally real it's equally Real and True just becomes more apparent to us and more self-revealing in a metaphysical context not not a physical met not a physical or material context but a transcendental metaphysical context and what I'm trying to say in all of this is that uh I think we want to become interested in a kind of Enlightenment kind of Awakening kind of transparency that a kind of um transformation they can hold the the the dramatic Paradox that I'm trying to describe to you transparently and very fully and very powerfully because on one hand if we let in how difficult and dest life can seem at certain points we can give into fear and despair and lose hope we can lose hope and we can give up on caring which is terrible which is spiritually I feel if I can say such a thing not permissible we can't we can't can must never let ourselves get get that thepress but um I lost my train of thought you have to forgive me but um I'm asking all of you if you can if you can bring this into your practice of your daily hopefully practice of contemplation introspection you can hold these two truths and meditate upon them every day so that you're not afraid of what's painful and frightening and terrible and awful which is part of what The Human Experience compels us to face now more than ever but at the same time you're aware of the goodness truth and Beauty and the unimaginable glory of the highest truth that is also that is indestructible absolutely indestructible and ultimately more true than anything else and sometimes the this this Paradox is is is something we can see very clearly and effortlessly and spontaneously and other times we have to work to hold this Paradox in our consciousness we never want to get so lost in our fear and our despair that we lose touch with the highest truth which is indestructible and we also at the same time we in order to honor our the vulnerability of our shared Humanity we don't want to become so lost in the highest truth which is positivity that's indestructible that we lose touch with the truth of suffering the first Noble Truth that the Buddha was speaking about you don't ever want to lose touch with the first Noble truth truth of suffering because it's being conscious about the truth of suffering that enables us to awaken to our deeper and deeper levels of our humanity and our capacity for compassion and vulnerability we want to hold all these things in Balance not an easy thing to do but it's if we if we have the courage and the commit spiritual commitment to make the noble effort necessary to hold all to hold these paradoxes in balance with each other we will become powerful and very beautiful awaken human beings which is the whole point it's almost like a um because as a lot of you are already well aware you know as we understand the meaning of nonduality as we get a more mature and deeper understanding of the nature of nality it's nothing to do with escaping to a higher place it has to do with seeing more more deeply into the ultimate nature of all things relative and absolute so when you become so conscious that you can bear witness to and become Co conscious and cognizant of both absolute and relative Truth at the same time and the deeper dimensions of absolute and relative Truth at the same time and your Awakening has real depth meaning and power to it it's not just holding two truths with your mind but it's spontaneously experiencing both simultaneously as a natural state which is what I think what we are what we want to work towards as I'm talking to all of you tonight I'm talking to myself also because I'm I'm struggling with all the these issues myself in my own life trying to wrestle with the indestructible glory of the gift that my Guru gave me for free almost 40 years ago and the challenges that we're facing as a global species right now which I'm I'm reading a lot about and I'm taking very personally as I think we all should be and I can feel myself being pulled in two directions at the same time and I'm trying to come to terms with all of it so this is I'm I'm speaking from my own contemplations but I think that the finally I mean I just really said what I intended to say but it's this um it's this capacity to Bear to awaken to the highest levels of absolute truth at the same time is being aware aware of some of the more challenging dimensions of relative truth and relative reality at the same time and holding those two truths together not recoiling not separating one from the other being able to see and feel both with an open heart and an open mind very vulnerably and a place where you're not defending yourself from how glorious the ultimate truth is and how terrible relative truth can be at at the same time you're not trying to protect yourself or defend yourself from any of it allow yourself to be in one with all of it I think is very much what the enlightenment that we needs to address with desperately is all about at this particular time especially it's neither one or the other it's both so realism and idealism we want to work we want to work on both every day really ism is making the effort to see reality as it is realism is making the spiritual and cognitive emotional philosophical metaphysical effort to see reality as it is as it is not as you want it to be or as you desire it to be but can you make that effort that spiritual effort to see reality as it is even when it's difficult and painful and at the same time are you making the spirit spiritual effort that needs to be made or Surrender however you want to put it necessary to have access to the highest truth which is the glory of God can you experience that highest level reality on its own terms free from your own thoughts about it when you fly Way Beyond your own mind and allow yourself to drown in the absolute nature reality that can't be confined in any dualistic World space and we work on both of these Truth at the same time because to be authentically awake especially at this time in history we need to be masters of both which will require enormous commitment and dedication so so maybe for the next few days after you meditate in the morning you should ask yourself before you start your day you can make a chart and say one on on one side you can have on one side of the paper you can have idealism and the other side you can have realism and you can you can ask yourself how are you doing in each category that particular day just to keep up with yourself are you being true to your are you being true to reality as it is are you seeing things clearly as clearly as you possibly can in relationship to your own personal life circumstances and and relationship to the the world situation we're all in which is quite overwhelming are you doing your best to face it at the same time you want to find out are you awake to the glory of God in every moment every day and if you are awake to the glory of God you want to ask I say what does it actually mean what does it look like as you remember as I was saying earlier those individuals are truly awake to the glory of God have access to a kind of Joy spiritual self-confidence that's infectious and uh vibrates with with transcendental love and freedom freedom freedom we don't want to forget about that so we don't want to compromise on the idealism we don't compromise on the realism that's serious practice a lot i' I've noticed a long time ago that a lot of people and for reasons that I'll never understand want to compromise on the idealism I say why would you want to compromise on the idealism what are you holding back for what don't you want to be happy don't you want to be happy don't you want to be unbelievably over inly happy don't you want to SAR to the highest Heights have Liberation and self-actualization transcendental truth don't you want to fly all the way to heaven if such a thing were possible why do you resist and in the same way uh too many of us are always resisting our own coming to terms with our own self destructive impulses we resist kind of sometimes we see oh I I see places where I'm stuck places where I'm holding back place where I'm resisting facing the truth about my own self my own limitations and if you don't fa if you realize these limitations have to be faced but you refuse to do it the longer you refuse you just we just continue to create karma karma continues to get created so avoiding anything that needs to be faced do not never pays off in the long run we just make things worse for ourselves so the question is don't do that living a spiritual life in Earnest is easy when it's CC it's hard when it's hard and you never know what's going to happen but we can show up and we can be prepared to fight the good fight with everything with God and I believe if We're Playing for Keeps God will love us for that whatever that means e e e e e very good if anybody has any questions I'll be happy to try and answer if I can so if you have any questions please write them into the chat box of Zoom at the bottom of there's a little sign I'm on the computer that says Max would like to control your camera approve or decline why would Max want to do that I think that's okay Andrew he probably pressed somewhere but if you have a question please write it in the chat box yeah in the meantime I I was honestly thinking I'm honest advice for everybody to just let simply to make take a sheet of paper put a line down the middle and just put idealism on one side and uh realism on the other just check it every day and just check every day how you think you're doing in relationship to both options it it'll keep you in the game it'll help you to remember what it would be like to live to live live a big big and very conscious life I have a first question Andrew from promote okay he says it seems it requires being aware with great clarity and spiritual strengths to be unfailingly idealistic and realistic which seems to bring a dynamism how is this linked to Freedom is our inner Freedom supported by this idealistic and realistic position yes yes and yes that's my answer yes yes and yes that's why I gave the talk of course yes yes yes good question and the answer is already there the next question is from Elda she is asking how would you see your inter subjective processes and practices helpful in today's world around the issue you have talked about um I think having the experience of coming together with other other sension beings other human beings in a context of ego transcending vulnerability and authenticity can renew one's faith in human [Laughter] nature so once again if you can come together with other human beings in a state of absolute undefended vulnerability transparency authenticity Brotherhood and Sisterhood in in in a in in a way that truly transcends the relative ego and the relative confines of the material world and you experience that kind of expansion of consciousness and mutual mutuality and awakened love it's very inspiring about human nature it gives us a lot of confidence in our potential as human beings to be good true and beautiful with each other and to give rise to something that's greater than any of us individually we can learn to learn how to work together in in the context of spiritual idealism so having those kinds of experiences on a regular basis renews one's faith in humanity which these days is desperately needed I think we need to have faith in each other other words it's one thing for me to have faith in self one thing for any of us to have faith in ourselves personally but do we have faith in other do we do we believe in each other we believe in each other so if you can have experiences on a regular basis where you find other people are actually worthy of trust that you that you can show up and be trustworthy and someone else can show up and be trustworthy and you can everybody can can do what they need to do to love each other in in the deepest and highest way this is very spiritually rewarding but but most of all it gives us faith in our in human potential and our evolutionary potential because if you can do spiritual work together in a context where you actually feel everybody's everybody is is experiencing a high State of Consciousness together you can start to see you start to see people actually changing and evolving and becoming more beautiful you start realizing oh my God it's possible to change I see so and so's changing you start changing and we get fa this gives us faith in human nature faith in our own capacity to evolve faith in other people's capacity to evolve and I mean that's very important faith faith in each other I love you but do you have faith in me you love me but do I have faith in you if if I love you but I don't have faith in you it's not the same as I love you and I have faith in you having faith in each other is so spiritually empowering and it's spiritually empowering not just personally but at a deeper level so it's having faith in humanity so that's what these kind of collective practices it's are pursued seriously and in Earnest can give us faith in human in in in the realization and actualization of human higher spiritual human potential and that's very important believing that it's possible for people to change to awaken and to become enlightened together and to experience trust and faith in each other because what's so painful in life is when we have when we have trust and faith in each other or in some someone and then they disappoint us and we start to lose Faith the trust is a very big deal so these kinds of practices if they're pursued in Earnest over a long period of time can become a source of enormous faith and human potential and if we then then if we succeed in this kind of work if the collective awakes up stays awake and continues to evolve develop and mature and um cohere you feel like you're building something in Consciousness together you're building a spiritual and metaphysical capacity for higher Consciousness and higher cognition it means something very beautiful about what's possible in Consciousness itself and all of this gives us gives us more access to spiritual self-confidence so yes it's a big deal thank you the worst thing right now is there so many people feel so alone lonely isolated depressed why is that funny I don't know that's funny but uh I just laughed I don't know what but having faith in each other that's a big part of spiritual life I not only love you but I have faith it's much easier to love somebody than to have faith in them but if I have faith in you you see it's it's easier to love just to love somebody but if you have faith in if you have faith in somebody then they can hurt you not not not they would want to hurt you but if you have faith in somebody you you're opening up your heart to them it takes an enormous amount of Courage but you can love loving somebody is one thing but having faith in them is another and I think if we if we're going to live a powerful powerfully awakened spiritual life would be one in which we have faith in each other but it's not but it has to be a faith that's actually earned it's not you can't just say well I have faith in you it's not something you can give somebody for free having faith in other people has to be has to be earned and it takes time but if you have faith in someone then they can hurt you if they have faith in you you can hurt them so that's much more challenging than just loving somebody but hopefully all of the spiritual work that we're doing if it's genuine and real should should should ideally if it's really should create cultures of Faith awaken awaken spiritual cultures where people have enormous faith in each other and it's Faith that's been earned and is being earned every day then we're building something of the greatest value between us which is Faith in each other fa the best parts of human nature and each other and if we can give birth to the best parts of human nature and each other as a result of our spiritual practice that's beautiful that makes it all worth it we don't have more questions you so we want to we want to be so so beautiful in the way that we live our lives that we inspire people to have faith in us how's that for something positive thank for we want to all get to the point where where we we want our example to be so inspiring that people will start to have faith in us faith in the best part of us I have faith in the best part of you Andrew I have faith in the best part of you I have faith in the best part of you and if you have faith in the best part of me and I have faith the best part of you we are opening our hearts to each other in a way that as I was explaining before makes us very vulnerable I'm just repeating the thought but I think it's important to understand it that's a real that's what a spirit that's what a real spiritual connection is all about that's what it feels like vulnerable and deep and exposed and exquisite and deeply beautiful and very meaningful we want our relationships to become inherently inherently meaningful because they're expressing all of this awakened Consciousness and inspired spiritual intentionality that's a whole other story that's beautiful